Guest Blog Author: Dr. Evan Loyd Abstract: The current consensus recommendations for fluid intake have been examined and found to be false or inapplicable in the situations for which they are recommended. The dangers to the people and the environment are detailed and the vested interests perpetuating these recommendations described. Introduction Scientists studying fluid balance […]
Category: Debates
Kjetil K. Haugen guest blog: Why we shouldn’t allow performance enhancing drugs in sport
By Dr. Kjetil K. Haugen[1][2][3] April 1, 2011 Abstract In this short note, I enhance the discussion of legalizing performance enhancing drugs brought up by Savulescu, Foddy and Clayton through applying some simple economic theoretic arguments. I claim that Savulesu et al. fail to see some evident economic arguments, and hence very well may reach an erroneous conclusion. 1 […]
Androgen Levels to Override Gender Categories in Athletic Competition: New IAAF Regulations
The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) recently approved new rules governing the eligibility of women with hyperandrogenism for competition. The IAAF aims to avoid future controversy similar to “the case” of Caster Semenya who won the World Championship in 2009 for the 800 m in Berlin (watch race here). 3 weeks prior to the […]
Good medicine: sports medicine. A response to recent criticism of sports medicine in BMJ
Guest blog by Dr. Malachy McHugh If the purpose of Des Spence’s article Bad Medicine: Sports Medicine (British Medical Journal, March 30 2011) is to strike a chord with sports medicine professionals then it has probably done its job. However, as a piece of scientific writing this lacks objectivity to put it mildly. The sports medicine […]
Patellofemoral pain syndrome? Consider orthoses or more comfortable shoes!
In the current issue of BJSM, Barton, Menz, and Crossley’s report on The immediate effects of foot orthoses on functional performance in individuals with patellofemoral pain syndrome. Their paper supports the beneficial effects of prefabricated orthoses. Orthoses “provide immediate improvements in functional performance, and these improvements are associated with a more pronated foot type and […]
Guest Blog – Wayne Hall weighs in on Genomic Screening
Professor Wayne Hall commented on the ‘modest’ impacts of population genomic screening in October last year in the prestigious PLoS journal (open access, yeah!!) After reading last Friday’s BJSM blog relating to Prof Tim Caulfield’s ‘Deflating the Genomics Bubble’ paper in Science,’ Prof Hall provided this first-hand background story to his PLoS paper: The aim […]
Preventing sports injuries – here are success strategies! Guest blog Professor Caroline Finch –
In a universal quest to ensure that sports injury prevention efforts actually do work because athletes and other participants actually do what we recommend they do, there have been increasing calls for more attention towards understanding the drivers of sports injury prevention from a behavioural perspective. It is concerning, therefore, that the sports injury research […]
Debating weight change and performance in marathon runners: Armstrong, Johnson, and Munoz guest blog (e-letter)
We write to present alternative interpretations of the data published by Zouhal and colleagues, in the BJSM article: Inverse relationship between percentage body weight change and finishing time in 643 forty-two-kilometre marathon runners The Abstract states that “… these data are not compatible with laboratory-derived data suggesting that BW [body weight] loss greater than 2% during […]
Deflating the Genomic Bubble (in Science!)** Big news
This paper in today’s issue of Science is going to get a lot of attention because it has multibillion (yes, billion, of not trillion) dollar implications. The thoughtful, balanced perspective should influence health policy from the WHO through to the NIH and lead public health agencies the world over. The international authors are not alone in making […]
Canada lowers the bar for physical activity…to make people more active?
The 2007-2009 Canadian Health Measures Survey indicated that only 15% of adult Canadians were active for a recommended 60 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity per day. Younger Canadians were even less active with 9% of boys and 4% of girls aged 5 to 17 meeting the health-benefit informed goals of 60 to 90 minutes […]